Abstract
The most promising concept for low frequency (millihertz to hertz) gravitational wave observatories are laser interferometric detectors in space. It is usually assumed that the noise floor for such a detector is dominated by optical shot noise in the signal readout. For this to be true, a careful balance of mission parameters is crucial to keep all other parasitic disturbances below shot noise. We developed a web application that uses over 30 input parameters and considers many important technical noise sources and noise suppression techniques to derive a realistic position noise budget. It optimizes free parameters automatically and generates a detailed report on all individual noise contributions. Thus one can easily explore the entire parameter space and design a realistic gravitational wave observatory. In this document we describe the different parameters, present all underlying calculations, and compare the final observatory’s sensitivity with astrophysical sources of gravitational waves. We use as an example parameters currently assumed to be likely applied to a space mission proposed to be launched in 2034 by the European Space Agency. The web application itself is publicly available on the Internet at http://spacegravity.org/designer. Future versions of the web application will incorporate the frequency dependence of different noise sources and include a more detailed model of the observatory’s residual acceleration noise.
Highlights
Gravitational waves [1] are expected to be the big revelation in astronomy, cosmology, and fundamental physics alike
In contrast to electromagnetic radiation, gravitational radiation travels unimpeded throughout the entire universe, and even electromagnetically dark objects are capable of producing gravitational waves
There are many other sources out there: very low frequency gravitational waves below 1 μHz produced by pairs of supermassive black holes can be detected when timing millisecond pulsars with radio telescopes [5]
Summary
The University of Western Australia, School of Physics, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia 6009, Australia. 2 Present address: Coherent LaserSystems GmbH & Co.
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